Crazy story happened in the Russian city of Perm a few days ago: a city bus lost control of its brakes at the top of a hill and careened down a busy street smashing cars, kiosks and generally wreaking a path

of destruction. Fortunately (for us) a street camera caught some of it on tape. Check out the video to see what happens when bus meets pedestrian. Does he live?? Watch and see.

So to continue today’s “Dude, where is…?” theme, we have a story about a particular Russian “babushka”. What makes her really remarkable is her date of birth: as marked in her passport it reads July 1, 1890, making her 119 years old. According to the Guinness Book of World Records the oldest woman living now on Earth is a Japanese lady who is 114 years old. But why, you might ask, can’t this Chelyabinsk granny beat her and take her rightful place in the Earthlings printed hall of fame? Well, for one, she can’t prove it; and second, she just doesn’t care. Her relatives of course were pretty enthusiastic about the idea until they realized that it’s not a simple matter of a lost birth certificate. The fact is, a hundred and

nineteen years ago, formal birth registration procedures were not a high priority. Moreover, such procedures were generally carried out by the church—but this babushka was raised in an Islamic tradition. The one document she owns is a gift card sent to her on her thirtieth birthday, and that postcard is almost ninety years old! So while her numerous relatives - and there really are a lot of them - like 67 grand children, 40 great grandchildren and even 17 great great grandchildren - are occupied with getting more info on her birth, she is spending her days sitting near the house and watching people pass by, her own time to hustle long past. Here’s to a hundred and twenty, Za Vas!

From time to time photos of child soldiers in Africa holding AK-47s or some other kind of weapon appear here and there provoking outrage and compassion from the Western public. But just a few decades ago, during World War II, there were often occasions of Russian kids fighting in the regular army against the Nazis. Generally speaking, children were not allowed to join the combat army—but many exceptions were made. Many kids tried to run away from their homes “to the War” but most such cases were eventually captured by military police and returned back to their homes. While some did succeed in joining the army, it was often the case for these runaways to get lost in the

woods or shot along their journey. Also, from time to time, soldiers found children in the devastated and burnt down villages of the Soviet Union. While there was a directive for them to send such children to established orphanages, still sometimes such boys were simply incorporated into the active combat units. Specially sized uniforms were tailored for them and they were entrusted with guns. Some of those boys joined the army at nine or eleven, and stayed with their regiment through all the war front, from Russia to Germany, until the war ended and they were discharged at fourteen or sixteen, often with medals of honor.

After this post about grain harvesting in Russia, many people supposed that it was some kind of “ideal” farm that differs greatly from other Russian agricultural companies because the images showed foreign harvesters, trucks and other machinery. So to clear things

up, here are some pictures of Russian produced grain harvesters. The “DON-1500″, has been in production since 1986 and is still sold in Russia. These particular ones are still being used. These machines, bought new, run about $120,000.

Today we have some scraps from the Ukraine! These pictures and the video are taken from a recent parliament meeting in which a new bill was passed. A small note of interest – the tall, angry looking fellow is

named Vitali Klitschko and he is not only a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Congress of the Council of Europe, but he is also the current World Boxing Council heavyweight champion.